Coast Guard vet, Erie resident marks D-Day in France

By ERIC MONTGOMERYContributing writer

June 6, 2014 01:50 PM

By ERIC MONTGOMERYContributing writer

June 6, 2014 01:50 PM

Jack W. Read, who hails from Brooklyn, N.Y., and currently lives in Erie, served as a chief motor machinist mate in the U.S. Coast Guard. He enlisted in January 1942 shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

After completing basic training and schooling in gasoline and diesel engine mechanics at Brooklyn Automotive Trades and the Sterling Engine Co. in Buffalo, Jack was assigned to #83464 of a new 83-foot class of cutter in July 1943 and quickly rose in rating from machinist mate class 2, to machinist mate class 1, then to chief.

In early 1941, the Coast Guard found it necessary to replace its Prohibition-era 75-foot cutters with ships that were larger and more modern. Wheeler Shipyard, no more than a few miles from Jack's Brooklyn home, eventually manufactured 230 new cutters. The ships were very effective and were deployed in several theaters during World War II, specifically on the Atlantic coastline for anti-submarine duty and coast watch patrols.

Yet the effectiveness of this new cutter design and the crews that sailed them stood their biggest test on that Day of Days, D-Day, June 6, 1944. The wooden hull of the cutter made it the ideal craft for close-in support; the threat of magnetic mines would be thwarted by the lack of its own resonance.

From their experience with previous amphibious landings in North Africa and the Italy, invasion planners expected that casualties to ships and landing craft would continue for several days, if not weeks, after the initial assault. Hence a "rescue flotilla" organized by the U.S. Coast Guard would serve as the lifeboats for sailors and soldiers alike who found themselves in peril on the sea. The dangers from mines, torpedoes, enemy batteries on shore, landing obstacles and the occasional accident were far too great to dismiss.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt fostered this idea, and the Coast Guard subsequently responded by reassigning 60 83-footers to the European theater and to Operation Overlord. Transported aboard liberty ships and cargo ships across the Atlantic Ocean, the cutters and their crews found their new home in Poole, along the southern coast of England. Rescue Flotilla One was now operational and given the nickname of the "Matchbox Fleet" due to the wooden construction and gasoline-powered engines of this craft.

Rescue crews were busy

After arriving in Poole, the cutter crews lived on their assigned ships. The hardships endured by the civilian population in England were quite evident to the men. After nearly five years of rationing and under the threat of an air attack, the British citizens earned the great respect of the servicemen. Despite the rationing, townsfolk welcomed the returning "colonials" into their homes for an occasional home-cooked meal. The air of confidence was building.

With only days to spare before D-Day, the flotilla fulfilled its complement of 60 ships. Half were assigned to the Commonwealth beaches code-named Gold, Juno and Sword, and the second half to the American beaches code-named Omaha and Utah.

Jack's cutter, CG-43/#83464, was assigned to escort and protect the Canadian troop ship, the Queen Emma, which was ferrying troops with the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division to their assault along Juno Beach. After the ship's rescue duties were fulfilled, the crew and cutter were assigned to mine clearing, harbor security and defense of Le Harve.

On D-Day alone, more than 500 souls were pulled from the frigid waters of the English Channel. Most of these rescues occurred at Omaha and a surprising number off Utah. Although there were far fewer casualties on the beaches at Utah in comparison to Omaha, for ships in the channel the danger was much greater.

Mines and coastal batteries took their toll on transports of all types, and from the skies, enemy bombers and mine layers did their best to pen up the Allied armada. The #16 ship rescued the most of all: 126 men. All told, Rescue Flotilla One rescued 1,438 people -- 1,437 men and one woman, a Royal Army Medical Corps nurse who was rescued from a hospital ship that hit a mine and quickly sank.

After World War II ended, Jack remained in the Coast Guard until February 1947. He returned to Brooklyn, where he and his wife raised eight proud children in southern New Jersey. Interested in his children's education, Jack served on the local school board for 12 years, including six years as president.

A member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, Coast Guard Combat Veterans Association and the Patrol Craft Sailors Association, he returned to Normandy for the 40th anniversary of D-Day, and to Poole for the 50th anniversary, where he and fellow Rescue Flotilla shipmate Jack Campbell helped dedicate a plaque honoring their group on the site of their 1944 moorings along Town Quay in Poole.

Friendship hits milestone

I met Jack on June 6, 2011, at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Va. From the moment we met, we have been close friends.

My maternal great-uncle, Amin Isbir, was killed on Omaha Beach. I spent five years researching the death of my uncle, a member of the 6th Naval Beach Battalion, whose date of death was misdated as June 8, not June 6, according to the testimony of his shipmates. Based on that information, my uncle's headstone was excavated and replaced at the Normandy American Cemetery.

In 2012, the National D-Day Memorial added Isbirs' name to its Necrology Wall. Isbir became the 2,499th American listed as being killed on D-Day, and I delivered the keynote address which chronicled the efforts needed to correct the misdating. After the address, Jack and I placed a wreath at the foot of newly dedicated plaque bearing Isbirs' name.

Today, Jack and I are marking another milestone in our friendship with our return to Normandy for the 70th anniversary of the invasion. We flew from Erie International Airport on May 30. After a brief stop in Philadelphia, we flew to London.

On Wednesday, Jack got underway again for Normandy, leaving Poole, England, exactly 70 years from the very day that Rescue Flotilla One departed for Portsmouth, one of the naval rally points for the pending invasion.

As if this moment can be eclipsed, certainly the highlight of our journey will be the presentation of the French Légion d'Honneur to Jack. The Légion d'Honneur is the highest decoration that a serviceman from outside France can receive. The honor is scheduled to be presented to him at the International Ceremony in Ouistreham today.

It is rumored that French President François Hollande will personally present honors to the D-Day veterans during this ceremony. Other dignitaries on hand will be President Barack Obama, Queen Elizabeth and numerous other heads of state and military leaders of the Allied Forces. It is expected the hundreds of D-Day veterans will also attend.

Lastly, Anne-Charline Lambard, a French journalist for National Television Channel 3, will continue to document our journey; she began with an interview in Erie on April 25. She planned to accompany us as we crossed the English Channel by ferry to Cherbourg.

In France, in addition to the International Ceremony, Jack has been invited to attend numerous veteran gatherings and official presentations at the Normandy American Cemetery, the Canadian ceremony at Juno Beach, the landing beach where Jack's cutter patrolled on D-Day, an airborne demonstration of a parachutist drop into Sainte Mere Eglise on Sunday, and other points of interest along the way.

We will return to Erie International via Philadelphia on June 14 after departing from Paris earlier that day.

ERIC MONTGOMERY, a World War II re-enactor and history buff, works as a process engineer for Accuride Wheels (www.soldiersandsailors.us).